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The Spanish copulas are ser and estar.The latter developed as follows: stare → *estare → estar. The copula ser developed from two Latin verbs. Thus its inflectional paradigm is a combination: most of it derives from svm (to be) but the present subjunctive appears to come from sedeo (to sit) via the Old Spanish verb seer.
They use it primarily in an adverbial function, comparably to the Latin ablative use. The same form may be used in an adjectival function and to express progressive aspect meaning. These languages do not use the term present participle. Grammars of these languages written in English may use the form gerund. Italian gerundio: stem form + -ando ...
The modern Spanish verb paradigm (conjugation) has 16 distinct complete [1] forms (tenses), i.e. sets of forms for each combination of tense, mood and aspect, plus one incomplete [2] tense (the imperative), as well as three non-temporal forms (the infinitive, gerund, and past participle). Two of the tenses, namely both subjunctive futures, are ...
Spanish is a grammatically inflected language, which means that many words are modified ("marked") in small ways, usually at the end, according to their changing functions. Verbs are marked for tense, aspect, mood, person, and number (resulting in up to fifty conjugated forms per verb). Nouns follow a two-gender system and are marked for number.
Similarly, the participle agrees with the subject when it is used with ser to form the "true" passive voice (e.g. La carta fue escrita ayer 'The letter was written [got written] yesterday.'), and also when it is used with estar to form a "passive of result", or stative passive (as in La carta ya está escrita 'The letter is already written.').
There are three verbs that have both a regular and an irregular past participle. Both forms may be used when conjugating the compound tenses and the passive voice with the auxiliary verbs haber and ser, but the irregular form is generally the only one used as an adjective: freír → he freído or he frito, but papas fritas.
In the Spanish language there are some verbs with irregular past participles. There are also verbs with both regular and irregular participles, in which the irregular form is most used as an adjective , while the regular form tends to appear after haber to form compound perfect tenses.
Some languages have shared these functions between several verbs: Irish, Spanish and Persian all have multiple equivalents of to be, making a variety of distinctions. Many Indo-European languages also use the verb "to be" as an auxiliary for the formation of compound (periphrastic) tenses (I’m working; I was bitten). Other functions vary from ...